MIT Sloan Management Review

Ron Utterbeck, the CIO for GE Corporate and the Advanced Manufacturing Software Technology Center in Michigan was vital in getting GE to implement its social network. The Facebook-like network built in-house is called GE Colab and links up the firm’s 115,000 employees from around the globe.

The network has been breaking down corporate silos, helping problems get solved quicker, aiding employees better find internal experts, and making it easier to share files and documents in a meaningful context.

Although most companies think “social media” when they hear the word social, author, consultant and business executive Nilofer Merchant says firms need to expand their understanding, and think about the transformative ways social tools change how an enterprise operates.

Among the fundamental ways social technologies alter companies include removing bottlenecks in decision making, freeing work from jobs; leveraging customers as co-creators; and getting customers to engage around a shared value.

The editors of MIT Sloan Management Review are pleased to announce the winners of this year’s Richard Beckhard Memorial Prize, awarded to the authors of the most outstanding MIT SMR article on planned change and organizational development published from fall 2010 to summer 2011.

By understanding the structure of talent networks within companies, managers can foster more effective collaboration.

Companies such as Procter & Gamble, Cisco Systems, Genzyme, General Electric and Intel are often credited with having attained market leadership through open innovation strategies. By tapping into and exploiting the technological knowledge residing beyond their own R&D structures, these companies outmaneuvered rivals. But while other organizations try to follow their example, many are failing because they neglect to ensure that the outside ideas reach the people best equipped to exploit them.

Finding the expertise to handle complex, knowledge-intensive team projects is challenging. That’s where a project network comes in.

Internal knowledge markets can facilitate information sharing within large organizations. The trick for executives is figuring out how to make them work.

CIOs who learn to balance formal and informal structures can create global IT organizations that are more efficient and innovative than organizations that rely primarily on formal mechanisms. Organizational network analysis provides a useful methodology for helping executives assess broader patterns of informal networks between individuals, teams, functions and organizations, and for identifying targeted steps to align networks with strategic imperatives.

Why are some employees adept at getting the information they need while others struggle to locate the right in-house experts?

Departing employees leave with more than what they know; they also take with them critical knowledge about who they know. That information needs to be a part of any knowledge-retention strategy.

A “postcompany” school of experts says information technology is enabling a new world of seamless collaboration among businesses. They recommend that executives tear down the “walls” and merge their companies into amorphous “enterprise networks.” Nick Carr counters that new technologies will never conquer cutthroat competition and shows why managers need to be wary of alliances that foreclose opportunities for advantage.

It takes more than superior abilities or expertise to become a high-performing knowledge worker. It takes connections. But high performers are much more than “social butterflies,” say the authors. Effective knowledge workers actively employ three tactics to build deep relationships that will be mutually beneficial over time.

People commonly talk about the energy (or lack thereof) associated with certain individuals or company initiatives. Managers can translate such talk into action that creates more energy, improves performance and fosters learning.

Informal groups of employees do much of the important work in organizations today. To help those networks reach their full potential, executives must come to grips with how they really function.

When employees walk out the door, they take valuable organizational knowledge with them. But managers who think creatively can keep it in-house.

Traditional teams are not faring well in today business environment because they are too inwardly focused and lack flexibility. The authors detail the high levels of performance of a new, externally focused team, the X-team and outline the five components of X-teams they have studied.